


Silent Partner

by Tzipporrah



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Grief/Mourning, Not Canon Compliant, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:28:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22729144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tzipporrah/pseuds/Tzipporrah
Summary: Alice has a bad idea that springs from good intentions. A way to share the load of working through the grief of the loss of a partner, with the only other person who knows exactly how she feels. Q loved both of them, her AND Eliot. And they both loved him.
Relationships: Alice Quinn & Eliot Waugh, Alice Quinn/Eliot Waugh, Quentin Coldwater/Alice Quinn/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	Silent Partner

"It's a terrible idea, and you're going to hate it." Alice blurted, in her typical negative, self preservation tone. "I don't even know why I made it to your door to bring it up."  
Eliot, sleep rumpled, glimmering dressing robe hanging open over his bare chest, ran a hand over his face and sighed. "Just tell me whatever the fuck it is so I can go back to sleep. If I hate it, I hate it, and we never speak of it again. If I like it, we go from there."  
Alice did that nervous movement with her mouth that always got on Margo's nerves. She tugged at her jacket, ran a hand through her hair.  
"We could, um." She rolled her eyes and licked her lips, then mumbled out the rest. "Have therapeutic sex."  
Eliot made a noise halfway between indignance and amusement. "What the fuck now?"  
"I mean." Alice examined her knuckles. "We both loved him. He loved both of us. It wouldn't be anything between me and you, but like. Like a threesome with a silent third partner. I told you it was a bad idea."  
She flicked her long, straight, pale blonde hair over her shoulder and turned to go. Eliot put out a hand, but didn't grab her.  
"Wait."  
She turned back, the obvious question in her eyes.  
"Um. Okay, so how exactly would this work?" There was no laughter in his voice.  
Alice sighed, a tightness visibly leaving her chest.  
"Right, so. Blindfolds. Um, we'd need to use some sensory elements to sort of, um. Like, summon the mental image of him. Scents, like his shampoo; textures, like his clothing. Is this making sense, or am I just babbling nonsense?"  
Eliot cleared his throat, which did nothing to shake the stunned expression on his face. "You're making sense, actually. Is there spell work involved? Or is this just, us? Personal."  
"We can do a small mind's eye glamour- which the blindfolds are necessary for- but it would be harder to do something more substantial, since I'm, you know. I don't have the same kind of body as he...did. I understand if this will be too hard for you, it's probably really selfish of me to even suggest it, since you're not really even into women."  
"No, it's, it's fine, it's not that." He crossed his arms and leaned against the door frame. "Well, not a lot that. If it came down to that, you could just wear a strap-on." He laughed.  
Alice laughed, too. This was absurd, but they might actually try it. She was profoundly surprised at how comfortable she was with this conversation, and the concept itself, given her self-imposed shame when it came to much of anything sexual in nature up until she started working through it with Q. She thought that would be a good thing to discuss with Eliot, beforehand, but just then, she was ready to let him go back to bed.  
"Alright then. I'll let you sleep off your hangover, or whatever, and we can talk about this more later."  
"Detox, actually." He said quietly.  
"Hm?"  
"Not a hangover. I'm trying to stay sober for a few days, and if that works out, maybe longer. I'm sleeping off my body's response to being sans alcohol."  
"Oh!" Alice smiled genuinely, her tone brightening marginally. "That's- I'm proud of you, El. Not that I had anything to do with it. But, I'm glad. If you need any help, I'm here. Anyway, go sleep. Bye."  
Eliot watched her walk down the hall, an expression of quizzical amusement playing around his eyes and mouth. He was only just noticing how alike Alice and Quentin were. Had been. He took a steadying breath and went back into the darkness of his bedroom.

****

[What about taste?], read the text Alice got, several hours later.  
[I hadn't been able to think of something to use for that one. But I'm open to suggestions.]  
[I'll take care of it. If you think of anything to add, let me know.]  
She put her phone and her glasses back on the night stand and went back to sleep.

In the morning, there was a soft knock at Alice's bedroom door, just as she was tying her boots. She found Eliot in the hall, bearing a drink carrier with two coffees, and a paper sack that smelled delicious.  
"Good morning, Miz Quinn." He intoned. Can we chat over coffee and croissants?"  
Alice smirked, but otherwise swallowed her urge to cringe at his pretentious pronunciation.  
"Uh, sure. Thank you."  
They sat in the kitchen, everyone else being out for the day, they had the penthouse to themselves.  
"Right." Eliot tilted his head to one side, raising an eyebrow. "We need to talk about what we each prefer. Specifically, things Quentin did with us."  
"Uhhm, okay." She took a big sip of her coffee.  
"Now, most of my experiences with him are snippets of those memories, from that--- other life. Not a lot to go on, at all. And of course that one drunken situation…"  
Alice cleared her throat. "It counts. If you can remember anything from it...it counts. It was a long time ago, and it can't hurt me anymore."  
"Are you sure?" The gentleness of Eliot's tone somehow made this awful, depressing situation feel a lot less uncomfortable. She was beginning to understand what Quentin had seen in him.  
"I- yes. That's kind of what this is all about, anyway. Catharsis."  
"If you say so. You're the boss of this whole kinky operation."

******

They stood in Eliot's room, each wearing a pair of Quentin's boxers, and one of his t shirts. On Alice, the shirt was a dress, on Eliot, it was just snug enough to display definition in his shoulders and pectoral muscles that didn't normally show.  
They turned, back to back, and worked the tuts for the mind's eye spell, then put on their blindfolds.  
"Are you ready?" Eliot whispered over his shoulder.  
"Yes," Alice murmured back. "Are you still sure about this?"  
"I'm not going to cock out on you."  
They sat on opposite sides of the bed and each took a small tray into their laps. On Alice's, there lay a handful of items, including, but not limited to a tiny bottle of fox musk, a cup of snow - enchanted not to melt, a scrap of cloth from a Brakebills South sweater, and a few pieces of bacon. Among other things, Eliot's tray contained a chalky plaster tile, a tiny piece of leather cut from the inside of Quentin's satchel, a skeleton key (it didn't matter that it wasn't the real one, the feeling was the important thing), and a ripe peach. The room itself was permeated with a special incense they had bought from another Nature discipline who Josh knew. It smelled like old books. So much so, that it felt very much like they were sitting on a bed somehow placed inside the Brakebills library. A playlist Q had curated himself softly played from a speaker hooked to Eliot's phone.  
Finally, Alice heard the soft click of Eliot's tray being placed on a table, and felt the bed dip. She took one last sniff and set her own aside, then turned towards him. She found his hand on the bed, then followed the line of his arm up to his face, inviting him to kiss her. Somehow, it wasn't weird. She hoped the glamour would give Eliot the sensation of beard scruff. For once, her self-inflicted inadequacy was leaning towards wishing she could grow facial hair, which was a little weird. He rubbed his nose against hers, and she ran her fingers through his hair. Soft, gentle kisses and caresses were carefully shared between them, slowly drawing out arousal and eventually, hopefully, passion. Hands roamed, taking in shapes of necks, shoulders, backs, thighs, bellies, and asses. Eliot really seemed to enjoy Alice squeezing his ass. He responded to it by growling by her ear, and nipping her neck. She had told him this was something that worked for her, and in the moment, it was clearly a way of returning the favor. This exchange initiated a shift, indicating progress. She sucked his lip into her mouth, and he moaned and tightened his hand in her hair. He pulled her tight against his chest, slipping her legs around his waist, and she rucked up his shirt, dragging her nails down his back. He swore, and for whatever reason - base animal instincts, she assumed - it did all the right things for her. She bucked her hips and bit at his shirt. She wanted it off. She had assumed they would need to keep them on the whole time, but she needed contact with more of his skin. He stilled her frantic hands, leaned back, and peeled it off, and she followed suit, tossing her shirt at the pillows just in case. He sighed when she ran her hands over his chest, carding his fingers through her hair. The glamour must have worked better than she expected, because what she felt under her hands was not what she had seen of Eliot's chest hair pattern, but Quentin's. She slid her hands up to his shoulders, and they felt a bit more sharply angled. His hands were still in her hair, and she guided them down to her own shoulders. The gasp he let out confirmed it. There was only a moment of consideration before they were grinding against each other fervently, kissing hard, biting and tugging and squeezing at each other, afraid to let another minute go by for fear of the spell being broken.  
She worked her fingers between the waistband of his shorts and his abdomen, quickly taking him in hand, and listening to the deep moans she caused by teasing him. The string of swear words he let out encouraged her, and before long, he reciprocated, tugging at her waistband and slipping his fingers inside her. Her arm went limp, her forehead fell to his shoulder, and she couldn't do much with her hand when he did that with his. She tried not to speak or let her voice get too high.  
"It's ok, fuck." Eliot panted next to her ear. "I want to know how I'm doing. Don't hold back."  
She released a combination of expletives to rival Margo's daily banter, and bit into his shoulder. He slipped free and encouraged her to raise up and let him remove the shorts, so for better access. Within a couple of minutes, her hips were pistoning against his hands, her back arched, and her fingers dragging him by his hair down to bite at her neck. She came twice before he stopped to catch his breath. Alice made a mental note to buy Margo something couture as a thank you. Eliot slid her off his lap, handed her a bottle of water, and stood up. As she drank, she heard the rustle of fabric over skin followed by the crinkle of plastic.  
"Condom," he murmured. "Everything good with you, so far?"  
She nodded, then remembered he couldn't see her any more than she could see him, and hummed affirmatively, then groped for a surface upon which to put the bottle. The bed dipped, and the warmth of Eliot's body seeped into her skin, making her realize how much she had missed it for that brief period. He felt around for her, found her shoulder, kissed it, found her hair, and sniffed it. They had both used Q's shampoo, to help ground them in the fantasy. It was fortunate they both had long enough hair to help keep up the pretense, too. Moving assertively, but giving her time to adjust, he carefully tugged her legs out from under her, and pushed her down onto her back. He covered her body with his, his hair falling to touch her cheek and neck as he bent to kiss her. His thigh pressed between her legs, and she wrapped her arms around his back. In a moment, he raised her legs to wrap around his waist, and pressed the tip of is cock against her wet folds.  
"Gonna go slow," he said in a strained whisper. "You're so small, I'm afraid I'll hurt you."  
Alice let her head fall back as she laughed. "Clearly you don't know much about the human vagina."  
"I thought we'd established that years ago, but okay," he said archly.  
"Shh, just keep doing what you were doing."  
And he did. He wasn't wrong, she did need time to adjust, a little at a time, to his length. She thought fleetingly about how it would feel in her ass, and adjusted her appraisal of Quentin's resiliency. A thumb brushed wetly across her clit, and she forgot everything else. The cock inside her had somehow reached a spot only personal toys had previously approached, and the combination of that and the now circular motion over her clit was lighting her whole body on holy fire. She groped for Eliot's head, but couldn't reach it at this angle, so she settled for clinging to his arms. He was moving gently and slowly, which might build up over long enough time, but she was in no mood to wait. She dug her heels into his thighs and bucked up at him. He got the hint, and adjusted pace accordingly. Within a minute or two, he was fucking her into the mattress, his thumb still doing its thing, her voice going up and up as she reached her apex. He fucked her through it, his arms shaking and the sounds from his throat tight from the pulsing spasms of her interior walls. When she came down, he slipped free, and flipped her over. It was his turn, now. Despite how this position was supposed to bring Eliot comfort, it gave Alice a little erotic thrill, too. His long hands on her hips, the brush of his legs against the backs of her thighs, and the way he manipulated her body to arch up made her flutter. She shushed the part of her mind that wanted to remind her that this was Eliot making her feel this way, and that was weird. Then his fingers dipped into her yet again, and she forgot why she had even briefly entertained the thought. Her head dropped to the mattress with a fresh moan, and she felt him finding her opening again. She had worried he would go for the wrong entrance, at one point. Yesterday? This morning? What was time, anymore? But he was so careful. And then he slid in like he was well familiar with the place, and at that angle, oh, it was something else entirely. The sounds he made then were different. Occasionally there was a broken off swear, but mostly it sounded a lot like begging. He ran his fingers through the ends of her hair, pumping in and out as he did. Something about the angle made Alice bury her face in the comforter and moan deep in her throat. She found her own clit, this time, and came faster, and harder, than she had anticipated. Eliot's voice went higher, choking off moaned words of love. And then he pulled her hips tighter against him and spasmed inside her. He continued to fuck into her through his orgasm, then slid free, and flopped onto the bed, wrapping an arm under her and pulling her with him as he fell. They didn't talk, but simply held each other, listening to each other breathe. They dozed for a while like that. At some point, they heard sounds of people moving around in the rest of the apartment, and stirred themselves enough to get dressed and undo the glamours. They stacked things to take out of the room, turned off the music, and Eliot opened the window to let out the remaining cloud of incense. Once dressed, Alice let the relaxed feeling linger long enough to hug Eliot tightly and plant a kiss on his shirt covered chest before wiping a couple of stray tears, and slipping out the door to go shower. He leaned against his dresser and let a few tears of his own go free, for once, then swiped at them, took a few steadying breaths, and stepped out into the hall.  
"Somebody smells like sex," Margo sang as she brushed passed him, grinning.  
"You know it, bitch." He tossed back.

**Author's Note:**

> I imagine either Alice's parents, their friends, etc, have discussed this type of thing in her vicinity, or maybe there are books in their collection that outline it.


End file.
